Financial Reconstruction 157
using this power of the purse strings to force on Egyptian
bankruptcy and secure thereby a revision of the terms of
the British occupation. It was a high price to pay for the
guaranteed loan of 1884, but as the British Government
had refused Northbrook's recommendation of a British
guaranteed loan, they had no cause to complain. And
this fetter did not represent all the chains in which the
British reformers were expected to dance. There was
also an International Control of British and French over
the railways, telegraphs, and the Port of Alexandria, all
of whose revenues were ''affected " (Decree, November
18, 1876), A similar Board administered the Domains,
and again another one administered the Daire estates.
Under these conditions began what Lord Milner has
described as the " race against bankruptcy/' which was,
indeed, a sort of three-legged obstacle race. It was only
won by a short neck, or perhaps we are entitled to say
by a long head. For this was Lord Cromerjs principal
contribution to that Egyptian nation, whose existence
he questioned to the very end. When his Budget of 1886-
1887 showed a small surplus of ££20,000, it was clear that
the British Jack the Giant-Killer had successfully climbed
the beanstalk and got the better of the Ogre of bank-
ruptcy. True, this success was obtained rather like
Jack's by the resourcefulness of Sir E. Vincent, and by
what has been described euphemistically as '' a variety
of financial expedients" (Encycl. Brit., vol. ix., p. 35).
These expedients included the postponement of pay-
ments amounting to ££200,000 due on December 31
of one year to January i of the next, and the writing
off ££250,000 worth of bad debts and counting it as a
substantial remission of taxation. Such proceedings are
permissible in the first period of a reconstruction. The
same may be said of the fiscal use made of exemption